As a lifelong introvert, being an observer and a listener on the sidelines is a normal state for me, even so, I don’t want to exist in isolation. I still need to feel that what I am doing has purpose and connects me with other people.

I don’t want to wait to live the life I want, I want to live my best life right now.

Running your own business is scary. You worry about money, you worry about your clients, you worry about not having enough clients, you worry about growing, you worry about staying small, you worry about what other people are doing and whether you are doing enough. You often spend more time worrying than you do enjoying the process of designing the life you want to live. A life that helps other people live better lives too.

I know you do, because I hear the exact same things from my clients over and over again and I promise you, I’ve suffered from those same worries myself. Being a listener means that people feel safe to bring their worries to me, they tell me they feel scared, or unsure, they tell me how high they are setting the bars for themselves and yet they still never feel like they are doing enough. They tell me that they feel scattered and unfocused, that they are busy all the time but never quite sure if they are working on the right thing or if what they are doing will bring the results they truly desire. They wonder where the time they have goes and they worry if they are spending enough time with the people they love, doing the things they really want to do. Mostly though, they worry about what they will have to sacrifice to make an impact on the world, and they worry that the cost of that sacrifice may be too high for them to bear.

I do the work I do because I know that small changes can create great impact

and I also know that we don’t have to spend every waking minute consumed by what we do in order to make a difference in the world.

I know it because I’ve lived it. I was the person who pushed themselves to the edge, who believed that you had to keep doing more and more if you wanted to succeed. I built something which people tell me changed their lives. But it came at a cost.

I was so busy doing everything I thought needed to be done that I forgot that if you truly want to create ways to serve others, you have to look after yourself. You have to put on your own oxygen mask first. I learned my lessons the hard way. Now I do the work I do to make sure that other business owners don’t have to make the same mistakes I did.

Changing the way that we work, developing strong structures and systems in our businesses, building, growing and inhabiting supportive communities means that not only can we make an impact, and an income - because we deserve to be paid for the work we do, especially if that work changes things for the better - we can also do more with less.

Doing more with less means developing better results for our clients, creating more time for ourselves and the ones we love without sacrificing our goals or our income. It means doing the work we are truly called to do, and living the life we want to lead instead of believing we must do one or the other.

Doing more with less allows us to say no, to set boundaries and hold them, to only do what will move us forward instead of what will hold us back. Most importantly, it allows us to redefine our own success and set our goals in alignment with it.

Everybody is capable of impact but we can’t do it alone.

We need support, we need systems, we need the people who have gone before us to reach their hands back in order to lift up the people who are coming up behind them. In short, we need community.

The world needs people to stand up, stand together and be counted. We need more people to use their best skills and talents, people who are prepared to step forward and say, “I can help. I can help you solve that problem. Together we can build a solution that works”.

This is what I know to be true if you want to see change happen, you have to act. 

You need to stop waiting for permission, it’s time to create the change you want to see in the world.

It’s what I’ve done, it’s what my clients do.

And if you need someone to walk beside you while you make your change, someone who will share the lessons they learned the hard way so that you can shorten your learning curve, who will help you implement the systems and processes which enable you to grow a sustainable, profitable business, someone who will be your cheerleader, your shoulder to cry on and the person who will keep pushing you to achieve more, then it’s time for us to talk.

It's time to run the business you truly want to run and to make the impact (and income) you need to build your legacy for the world.

What are you waiting for?

NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS

If you want more inspiration, systems and strategies to help you create the business that you truly want to run, then you'll love my Notes for the Curious. It's published every two-weeks and delivered straight to your inbox. Notes for the Curious is a curated digest of everything I am learning and loving about running a business and living a life on purpose. From time management, to goal setting, community building to confidence boosting as well as systems and tools to make your life easier, we will cover it all.

I am so fortunate to be surrounded by a wonderful network of generous, smart and funny fellow business owners.

I hung out for a while on a video call recently with my friend Stephanie Ward, an incredible marketing mentor for small business owners to chat about practical marketing that people will actually enjoy doing. Because for many of us, marketing is either "ugh!" or some mystical science that we just can't seem to wrap our heads around.

Let's try and change that.

To watch the video and get the tips, head on over to Stephanie's website, Firefly Coaching.

NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS

If you want to make sure you are consistently letting people know about your business, then you'll love my Notes for the Curious. It's published every two-weeks and delivered straight to your inbox. Notes for the Curious is a curated digest of everything I am learning and loving about running a business and living a life on purpose. From time management, to goal setting, community building to confidence boosting as well as systems and tools to make your life easier, we will cover it all.

In 2014 I burnt out. A combination of things happening in my personal life and the stress of running a fast-growing, rapidly evolving not-for-profit foundation pushed my body and mind over the limit of what it could handle and I simply stopped being able to function. I was angry, sad, resentful and numb on what seemed to be a minute-by-minute rotation of emotions. I was so physically depleted that my entire body felt as if it was failing one part at a time. My hair fell out, my skin flaked, I caught every virus going and could barely make it out of bed to care for my son.

If I had been employed, I would have been signed off sick by a doctor and told to rest and recover. But as a business owner, that simply wasn’t an option. I was lucky, I had a team supporting me and enough processes in place that they could keep the basics (and often way more than the basics) operational while I fell apart. It wasn’t perfect, it put immense strain on them and they definitely struggled as I dropped off the radar and failed to respond in a timely manner, if I responded at all.

It was a dark time.

Life Happens

As I said, I was lucky, I had people who were able to pick up the pieces I had left and make it work. My business kept running. But if you are a solopreneur, a team of one, what do you do when life happens to you and you can’t run your business the way you have been running it or maybe, at all?

Now that I have my own consultancy, where I am the only information holder, it is even more critical to ensure that in the event of something happening, my business and my clients would be taken care of.

Because next time, it may not be a burn-out. There are a whole host of other things which could compromise our ability as business owners to do our work and none of them are pleasant. As an expat I’ve had to make the sad dash to the airport to say goodbye to someone I love at the end of their life. I’ve watched friends suffer a relative’s diagnosis of terrible illness which takes all their strength to battle or have their lives flipped upside down as they have to drop everything for a parent who can no longer support themselves.

Our lives can change in an instant and preparation for this is like an insurance policy. We hope we will never have to use it but if we do, we are grateful that we planned for it.

The Steps You Can Take Right Now to Protect Your Business

Fortunately, while we cannot plan for every eventuality, there are steps that we can take to mitigate the impact of an emergency in our personal lives when it comes to our business. The details of what needs to be done will be different for every business but the basics you should cover are broadly the same.

1. Document Your Systems and Processes

This is good business practice anyway, to move all your important information, how-tos and other business-critical details into a centralised, accessible location. I call this my HUB and go into much more depth about it in my Asana Training videos. Make sure you include how to do the business-critical parts of your work as well as documenting the most important information and contact details that someone else would need to run your business.

If you just have one place to direct someone to that contains all the information that they require in order to carry out your emergency plan then it makes it much more efficient for everyone.

2. Create an In Case of Emergency Planning Document

This document should contain a step by step of what a trusted third-party should do in the event that you are unable to run your business. Within this document you should cover two scenarios:

The Temporary Emergency Plan - Which enables them to keep your business operational while you are temporarily unable to do so.

The Worst Case Emergency Plan - Which gives them the information they need to wrap up and close your business.

You must consider what the most critical steps are in each situation, what information and contact details would be needed by your trusted person and where those details can be found.

Neither of these scenarios can be described as pleasant to plan for, which is probably why we put off doing it, but it is important to consider what would need to be done in each case to help the person that you will be choosing to implement them.

3. Choose a Person

If you are temporarily or permanently unable to run your business then someone else will need to do it for you. Choose this person wisely because they will be holding the keys to your current and future livelihood. Bear in mind that while your most trusted person may be within your immediate family in the event that something happens to you (or to them) they and the people closest to you may well be in crisis mode and unable to focus on your business. Which is not to say that they shouldn’t be the holder of the keys to the information, but you should write your plans as if they might have to be handed to someone else further down the line.

This shouldn’t need to be said, but you do need to check, by which I mean have a proper conversation with, the person you choose to make sure that they are happy and comfortable performing this role for you. We cannot just assume that people will or are able to do this task for us. Ask first.

The Next Right Step

The thought of having to do this may seem overwhelming, particularly if you don’t yet have a centralised place for your information. It can be tempting to put these things off because we think it could never happen to us and we’ve got other, more important things to take care of

I know. I’ve been there too.

But, if you do nothing else, have a think about who would be able to support you in the event of an emergency and try to have a talk with a trusted person about the “what if” scenarios.

If you can create time to do a bit more, then make creating the In Case of Emergency Planning Document your next right step. To help you on your way, I am making my own In Case of Emergency Planning Template available to you right here. There is no opt-in required, you can just click and copy it to your own Google Drive and fill it out with the critical details for your business.

Being prepared costs nothing

Doing advance preparation for something that may never happen costs us nothing but time. What it represents though, is a commitment and service to your business and clients which is far in excess of any immediate financial reward.

It is my most sincere wish for you, that you never have to face a temporary or permanent disruption to your business which is out of your control.

But just in case, isn’t it better to start planning for it now so that if it happens, everyone knows exactly what to do?

NOTES FOR THE CURIOUS

If you want more systems and strategies to help you work on your business instead of in your business, then you'll love my Notes for the Curious. It's published every two-weeks and delivered straight to your inbox. Notes for the Curious is a curated digest of everything I am learning and loving about running a business and living a life on purpose. From time management, to goal setting, community building to confidence boosting as well as systems and tools to make your life easier, we will cover it all.